Catalytic olefin metathesis has been blossoming for half century because of its unparalleled importance in the synthesis of many petrochemicals, fine chemicals and polymers. (See, A. H. Hoveyda, A. R. Zhugralin, Nature 450, 243 (2007) and J. C. Mol, P. W. N. M. van Leeuwen, in Handbook of Heterogeneous Catalysis. (2008), vol. 14, pp. 3240-3256.) Compared to the rapidly growing homogeneous olefin metathesis catalyst family, less progress has been achieved in the heterogeneous system, which is of greater interest to industrial applications in terms of cost. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to the developing more efficient and robust catalysts that could bridge the gap between the highly active homogeneous catalysts (Turnover frequency of 103-104/h, TOF) and the easily separable heterogeneous catalysts (TOF of 101-102/h). (See, C. Coperet, M. Chabanas, R. P. Saint-Arroman, J. M. Basset, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 42, 156 (2003); N. Popoff, E. Mazoyer, J. Pelletier, R. M. Gauvin, M. Taoufik, Chem. Soc. Rev. 42, 9035 (2013) and C. Coperet, Dalton Trans., 5498 (2007).) One approach is heterogenizing homogeneous olefin metathesis catalysts by grafting them on various supports. This technique improves the recyclability of these expensive organometallic compounds at the expense of catalytic activities. (See, C. Coperet, M. Chabanas, R. P. Saint-Arroman, J. M. Basset, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 42, 156 (2003); N. Popoff, E. Mazoyer, J. Pelletier, R. M. Gauvin, M. Taoufik, Chem. Soc. Rev. 42, 9035 (2013) and C. Coperet, Dalton Trans., 5498 (2007).) Another approach is promoting the activity of supported metal oxides, by means of using promoters such as organotin compounds, or rather peculiar and complicated pretreatment schemes. (See, Y. Iwasawa, H. Ichinose, S. Ogasawara, M. Soma, J. Chem. Soc., Faraday Trans. 77, 1763 (1981); B. N. Shelimov, I. V. Elev, V. B. Kazansky, J. Catal. 98, 70 (1986) and M. Kazuta, K. I. Tanaka, J. Chem. Soc., Chem. Commun., 616 (1987).)
These catalysts on the one hand suffer from their synthetic complexities, on the other hand are nonregenerable after being deactivated under the reaction conditions. These two facts make these catalysts less affordable for large scale applications.